Printers, other imaging appliances, and peripherals in general have become an important aspect of information processing. In fact, peripherals are increasingly utilized in commercial, educational, and entertainment environments in conjunction with a computer. In any of these diverse environments, the computer connected to the peripheral typically utilizes an operating system. One prevalent operating system is the Windows® operating system from Microsoft® Corporation. Consequently, many peripherals are controlled at least partly by the Microsoft Windows® operating system. More specifically, many peripherals are controlled by the Microsoft Windows® operating system using one or more (device) drivers.
For example, printers are controlled by the Microsoft Windows® operating system using printer drivers. A particular printer driver in conjunction with the Microsoft Windows® operating system enables printer settings to be established for and print jobs to be sent to a corresponding printer. The manufacturer of the printer usually provides the corresponding printer driver for use with the Microsoft Windows® operating system. From time to time, the manufacturer of the printer may wish to update the printer driver to provide new functionality, to eliminate problems with a current version, to improve interaction with the operating system, and so forth. The Microsoft Windows® operating system provides a function call for upgrading printer drivers.
The Microsoft Windows® operating system function call for upgrading printer drivers is termed DrvUpgradePrinter. When the DrvUpgradePrinter function is called, the Microsoft Windows® operating system replaces a current printer driver with a new printer driver. The Microsoft Windows® operating system includes a built-in protection feature that is intended to avoid problems in which the new printer driver does not work or does not work properly, in which the operating system is subject to crashing because of the printer driver upgrading, and so forth. This built-in protection feature compares a name of the current printer driver to a name of the new printer driver. If the names match, then the printer driver settings for the current printer driver are maintained for use with the new printer driver. If, on the other hand, the name of the current printer driver does not match the name of the new printer driver, then the Microsoft Windows® operating system deletes the printer driver settings for the current printer driver so that they cannot be maintained for use with the new printer driver.